Paterfamilias Poems | Examples


List of Member Poems

The Apple Of Your Eye


Lead me into the still waters of your living Grace Lord 
make me the apple of your eye, the tip of your sword 
Bring me into the light, let your sun shine on my soul 
turn me into a star and beam me from earth's shoal 

Take me to your bosom, rock me like a wayward child 
jewel of my heart, be the living word on my still-breath  
Connect my mind to my heart and help me to re-new,  
when I'm stressed and taking on more than I can chew.  

Father of lost children, sick, poor and hungry, take me 
into the oceans of your Mercy and Compassionate Love 
Paterfamilias, ... cured I shall be with one touch of you,  
or on the other side of heaven, if you asked me to 

Lead me into the still waters of your living Grace Lord 
make me the apple of your eye, the tip of your sword. 

Amen 

Dedicated to my brother in law Joe, who is passing away.

Premium Member Activate the Arguement

Activate the Argument
David J Walker

A one-world lonely drop
	One word then two

From a pile of past important papers 
Pinned in the permanent ink of

atavistic fears and instincts 

picking
	three words then four

voices heard
	unseen 
in a perturbed 
rebirth of a past
manuscript 

what has she seen 
	and when did she see it
what did she mean 
	and when did she mean it

	five words
		then six
as thick 
as an August evening 
on a screened-in porch 

You explain
	I am the path 
But not its patron
	I am
The Paterfamilias
And not its Matron 

Eight words then ten
And it’s over enough to
Start again

Setting Sun 1

Setting sun

Splash of burgundy paan-spit
and the paterfamilias nodding off

pink  filial freeness
silhouetted against a crimson feel- flare
(or was it orange flair or even purple fair)

symbiotic exchanges
slapstick sequences

elfin  hemlines and tarty décolletages
catching agoraphobic impulses
homing…


04 aug 13

For Charlotte's contest


Dadio Romanus

Contemplate the word paterfamilias
Head of the household
Chief provider and protector
The Patriarch
Ceaseless searching
Selfless in his duty
Clothe the babes in love
The Patriarch
Understand the word paterfamilias
Discipline, respect, and sacrifice
But also
The Patriarch

Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.

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